{"id":403537,"date":"2026-01-10T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T05:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403537\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T05:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T05:30:07","slug":"tim-merlier-forced-to-delay-2026-season-due-to-knee-injury-suffered-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403537\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Merlier forced to delay 2026 season due to knee injury suffered in December"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Belgian, winner of 16 races last year – including stages 1 and 3 of the Saudi race – proved to be incredibly successful in his pursuit of success in the fast finishes. As Soudal – Quick-Step<\/a> said goodbye to Remco Evenepoel, the 33-year old becomes perhaps the most important figure in the team, with a Tour de France return virtually guaranteed for next summer. But the plan to start his season in Saudi Arabia is no longer going to come together.\u201cThe AlUla Tour<\/a> is out of the question,” Merlier confirmed to Sporza<\/a> at Soudal – Quick-Step<\/a>‘s media day. “I will only start my season when I feel ready and when the coaches agree. That\u2019s when we will set a date. We\u2019ll see how it evolves. It\u2019s too early to say where I\u2019ll start now.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This happened after a cyclocross event that he took part in early December. Ultimately, the pain forced him to take some time off the bike and also prevented him from taking part in cyclocross races during the Christmas block where he was initially scheduled to be in. He is now healed, but behind schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt went away with rest. It\u2019s not easy, being here on a training camp in Spain. Fully connecting with the rest of the team isn\u2019t possible yet.\u201d Hence it is not possible to access yet where the Belgian will start his season, but his main goals should not change. \u201cWhat do I hope for? To be in top form for the Classics period”. There, he should be racing the Ronde van Brugge, Middelkerke-Wevelgem, Scheldeprijs and Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Belgian, winner of 16 races last year – including stages 1 and 3 of the Saudi race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[185858,64,63,784,17833,85,172711],"class_list":{"0":"post-403537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-alula-tour","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-soudal-quick-step","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tim-merlier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}